GARDE OBTAINS THE JAIL KEYS.
UNBEKNOWN to his retinue, Adam was accommodated in the same jail where
Pike and Halberd had been landed while the evening was still
comparatively young. The body of the little Narragansett, brutally
snatched from Adam’s arms, had likewise been brought into Boston.
Randolph had lost no time in having Rust examined and declared a
prisoner of the state, charged with a whole category of crimes against
the peace and dignity of the King. To all of this, and to nearly all of
their questions, Rust had made no reply whatsoever. He realized the
uselessness of pitting his one voice against those of half a dozen
perjured rascals, who came about him the moment it was known he had
finally been taken, ready to swear to anything which would be likeliest
to jeopardize his life.
Thus, before half-past eight that night, the whole of Boston was wagging
its tongue over an astonishing story, instigated at once by Edward
Randolph. This dangerous, blood-thirsty rascal, Rust, had been taken in
the forest, whither he had fled to join his Indian wife, and in his
struggles to avoid arrest he had slain his half-Indian child.
This was the indictment, mildly expressed, that reached the ears of
Garde Merrill concerning her lover. She was simply appalled. It was
unbelievable, it was monstrous. She scorned to think it could possibly
be true. And yet, if he had been in Boston several days before, as the
story had it, why had she known nothing about it? The whole thing had
been a gross fabrication. He could not have been in the town and going
to a tavern to mix in a horrid brawl. He would certainly have come to
see her immediately on his arrival. He had promised to return in about a
week from a visit to the beef-eaters.
When she got as far as that, she suddenly tried to stop thinking. He had
been gone many weeks instead of the one; the beef-eaters had not been
with him when he had the alleged fight, nor when he was captured, and he
had mentioned to her, on their walk from Plymouth, that he had once
stopped at the Crow and Arrow, where the brawl was reported to have
taken place.
Nearly frantic with the terrible thoughts in her head, Garde hastened to
John Soam’s to get what she could of sober truth, which John would have
as no one else might in the town.
She was mentally distraught when she came to her uncle’s. She had
carried a dish belonging to her aunt Gertrude, to make an excuse for her
late evening visit. She was more glad than she could have said that
Prudence was away, for her cousin knew something of her feeling for
Adam.
Garde, having been made welcome, had no need to ask questions. John Soam
was telling the story of the night with countless repetitions. His wife
cross-examined him in every direction which her womanly ingenuity could
suggest.
Thus Garde discovered that it was undeniably true that Adam had been in
town several days before; that he had been engaged in a terrible fight,
in which he had inflicted grave injuries on Randolph and one of his
“peaceable officers”; that he had then escaped back to the woods, from
which, it was alleged, he had emerged solely for this fighting, and
that, when captured, he had a half-Indian child in his possession.
John Soam had seen the body of the child himself. He had heard the
examination, in his capacity of clerk to the court and magistrates. Rust
was lame, he said, and he was a sullen man, who had returned no answers
but such as cut wittily. He had not denied that the child was his own.
He had absolutely refused to say whose it was and how he came to have
it. He had come to the farmer’s house, at the edge of the woods, for
purposes of robbery. There was every reason to believe that he had
consorted with the Indians, and that the child was his. It was a pretty
child, but many thought it looked as if it had been shockingly abused.
There could be no doubt that, when he had found himself being taken, he
had profited by the confusion to slay the little half-Indian boy.
Garde’s horror grew as she listened. She remembered terrible things that
Adam had told her when he believed her a youth. He had excused
Randolph’s conduct with Hester Hodder, hinting broadly that, in a case
he had in mind, he thought another young woman—in this instance Garde
herself—ought to forgive such a treachery to honor. He had even
mentioned that she, when dressed as a boy and browned, reminded him of a
young Indian woman whom he had known and liked. He had lived with the
Indians as a boy; he had gone back to them as a man.
All those other dreadful half-confessions, in this new light, looked no
longer innocent—the French damsel, the Countess, and the others. He had
deceived her about going to New York to see the beef-eaters, she told
herself, in agony. He had gone to the forest instead. And God only knew
what things he had done in those silent woods! Had he abandoned the
mother of his child, as Randolph had done——or had he committed something
worse? for Hester, in the similar instance, had died so strangely.
At least it was plain that before Adam could marry again he would be
obliged to abandon that Indian woman. And what if she were Indian? Was
she less a woman? Would she suffer less agony? Garde thought of Hester,
and of how the wild young thing had begged her not to take away the man
who had so cruelly wronged her. The picture was almost more than she
could bear. The whole affair fell upon her heart with a weight that
crushed her happiness into a shapeless, dying thing. In whatsoever
direction she turned, Adam’s own actions and words confronted her with
the blank wall of hideous truth.
She knew now why, after he had walked all the way to Boston at her side,
he had failed to appear at Grandther Donner’s, for days and days. She
saw it all, plainly—horribly plainly. It was so absolutely unescapable.
And yet, he had seemed so honest; he had spoken so of love; he had so
convinced her heart and her soul of his purity, nobility and worth! She
loved him still. She could not avoid this. It had grown up with her; it
had become a part of her very being. She would love him always, but—she
could not become his wife—not after this—never! The thought of such a
thing made her shiver. His perfidy was almost greater than Randolph’s—as
an Indian woman would have been so much more innocent and trustful than
even Hester.
Her heart cried. “Oh!” and yet again, “Oh!” in its anguish. If he had
only left some little loophole for doubt—if he had only denied their
accusations—if only he had not said those terrible things to her, upon
the highway, perhaps——“No, no, no, no,” she cried, in her soul; this was
compromising with loathsome dishonor. Far better it was that the awful
truth was so indisputably established! It left her no ground for
excusing his deeds, at the dictates of her unreasoning love! Yet, oh, it
had been so sweet to believe in him, to love him without reserve, to
trust her very soul in his keeping! She wrung her hands under the table,
as she listened, with ears that seemed traitors to her love, to all that
her uncle could add to the story.
She soon learned that Adam was Randolph’s particular prisoner; that
there had been some old-time grudge between them, and that the crafty
man of power would undoubtedly make an effort to hang his captive.
At this her womanly inconsequence was suddenly aroused. He might be
guilty, but she had always thought him noble and good. She would never
marry him, after this, but she would love him forever. He had been her
idol, her king. He must live, for at least she had a right to keep
enshrined in her heart the thought of him, pulsating heart to heart with
her, as once he had. No! He must not be permitted to die—not like
this—not in infamy—not at the hands of this monster of iniquity—this
Randolph!
It was not that she had the slightest hope that he could ever be the
same to her again, or that she should ever wish to see him again, but at
least he had a right to live, to redeem himself, partially, perhaps to
suffer and to sorrow for his deeds. Indeed he must so live—he must so
redeem himself for her sake—to justify the love and the trust she had
given him out of her heart!
She felt that she should choke if she did not soon get out in the air.
She wanted to run to the prison, hammer with her fist on the gate,
demand admittance and set him free—free from Randolph’s clutches. But
she knew this was madness. Her mouth grew parched and dry with her
excitement, so tremendously held in control. How could she manage to get
him free? Oh, if only she dared to tell her uncle John and get him to
help her!
He had the duplicate keys to every door in the jail. He brought them
home night after night and hung them up on—There they were, now! They
hung there within reach of her hand! Her heart knocked and beat in her
bosom, as if it were hammering down the barriers to Adam’s cell. She
weaved dizzily, with the possibilities of the moment. Just to take those
keys and run—that was all, and the trick would be done. He could go—and
their love would be a thing of living death!
She meant to take those keys. The impulse swayed her whole being. She
felt she would die rather than miss her opportunity. With clenched hands
and with set jaws she arose to her feet.
“I must be going home,” she said, with apparent calm. “Oh, what was
that?”
“What was what?” said her aunt and uncle together.
“Why—some noise, in the other room,” she said with a tremor easily
simulated, in her excited state. “I am sure I heard something in there,
moving!”
“Hum—let’s see,” said John.
“It might be that I left the window open,” said Goodwife Soam.
The man took the lamp, opened the door to the adjoining apartment, and
went in, followed by his wife. Garde, with a gasp, and a clutching at
her heart, lifted the keys from their nail and dropped them into her
pocket with a barely audible jingle. She followed her aunt a second
later.
“Why, it was—nothing, after all,” she said, weaving a trifle in her
stress of emotion and nervousness. “But the window was up, as you said.
I’m glad that was all. Good night.”
“Good night,” said John Soam and his wife, from the window which John
was pushing down, and without waiting another minute, Garde let herself
out and sped away in the darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------